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Unity, the company behind the popular game rendering engine, recently announced that it will no longer be charging its $800 licensing fee to developers looking to make apps for Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android platform. Unity CEO David Helgason explained that decision to drop fees for the tool’s basic feature set is part of a push to make mobile game development more accessible.

Helgason noted that he and his team have been looking forward to offering a no charge mobile version of Unity for quite some time after already having made a free option made available for the desktop and Web platforms. According to him:

Mobile games development is possibly the most dynamic and exciting industry in the world and it's an honor to be able to help so many developers be so successful in fulfilling their visions and in building their businesses.

According to the company’s blog, game studios and “incorporated entities” which made in excess of $100,000 last year are required to purchase a paid version of Unity 4. A number of high-profile games are currently powered by Unity including Rovio’s Bad Piggies, Imangi’s Temple Run 2 and Madfinger Games’ upcoming Dead Trigger 2. The new price structure comes about two years after the company dropped a $200 fee for Indie developers, a move that Helgason said helped grow the Unity community from 13,000 developers to just under 2 million.

Although it wasn’t announced at the conference, Helgason pointed out in a blog post that identical free-of-charge models will also be rolling out for Microsoft’s Windows 8 and BlackBerry 10 in the coming months.